First, I apologize if anyone tries to load this on a slow internet connection. I'm using a lot of embedded clips to illustrate my points this week and I hope it won't inconvenience you.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this week's reading was how easily a critique of Chosen fit into the theory. Marxism is a criticism of the way that class, economics, and structures impact the art we create and here we have a commercial dressed up to look like a movie and isn't it marvelous how easily it fits into this model? Then I started trying to look at the movie through some of the more specific Marxist critical lenses and that's when it started getting really entertaining.

According to Barry one of the methods used in Marxist criticism is to "explain the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the social period which 'produced' it. Commercials are a genre that are extremely representative of our modern consumerist and materialist culture. I would argue that Chosen is a commercial overtly presented as art and that most modern movies and television are just as intent on selling a product they are just more covert in their presentation. That Chosen is not unique because it blends art and commercialism but that it is unique for that overt way in which it does so.

Take a look at the following clips from some popular movies,


How many products were on display and being sold in that commercial film? Granted that's part of the joke there but what about this example?

In just that short clip there were plugs for ipods, apple computers, hewlett packard, pepto bismol, panasonic, x-box, and naturally lots of cars, porsche, hummers, GMC, even the t-shirt Shia LaBeuf is wearing is advertising The Strokes.

We live in the age of product placement.Advertisers aren't as interested with placing during commercial breaks because they know that we don't watch them, instead they want to find a way to advertise their product in the program itself. This clip from 30 Rock beautifully illustrates how money really is the bottom line.


I have many more thoughts on this topic but I'm going to save them for my presentation and I will leave you with this last clip from Neil Young. The video for "This Note's for You" was intended as a commentary on the commercialization of art. Initially banned by MTV because they worried that many of the ads and companies parodied in the video would sue the network of course in true MTV fashion they milked the controversy for all it was worth and then eventually rewarded it with a video of the year award. This Note's for You